I have stood in front of the Lewis Chessmen more than once, and not one of them has ever looked pleased to see me. They are small, carved from walrus ivory, more …

The word post-Impressionism was invented in London, by an Englishman, about a group of French painters who never once used it themselves. In November 1910 the critic Roger Fry took an open …

I have a habit when I travel. Whatever European city I am in, I look for the Roman layer underneath it. Sometimes it is obvious. More often it is a fragment of …

I have been a Gordon Ramsay fan for years, and I know the reputation: loud, sweary, hard on people. That is only half of him, and it is not the half I …

I have stood at the edge of Monet‘s pond in Giverny, watched the water lilies wrap around me in the Orangerie in Paris, and then, not expecting it at all, found the …

London does Christmas at street level. The lights are strung the length of whole shopping streets, hung under Victorian market roofs and packed along the river, rather than gathered around a single …